amor, amissio, aetas
by scarlet phlame
Summary: Nothing lasts forever. Not even true love, apparently.


Summary: Nothing lasts forever. Not even true love, apparently.

AN: Yeah... it's short... kinda lost my inspiration. Like, a week ago. e_e Feel free to murder me. With an axe.

* * *

Despite many people's beliefs, gum does not secure your shoe to the ground.

Oh, yeah, it sticks there. It's like a little pothole indented into the road the size of the tip of your finger, something you stumble on, across, above, but it doesn't stop you where you're standing. It's there, then it just isn't. It's just a distraction in someone's ordinary life.

Despite many people's beliefs, Captain Jack Harkness does not have an ordinary life.

It's one of the things he's never owned; fancy cars (spaceships), fancy friends (aliens), fancy eyes (that have seen everything there is to see), fancy lovers (too many to count).

Not Ianto Jones.

Much like a piece of gum on the floor, he was there, and then he wasn't. No matter how much he loved him, used him, savored him, in the end, he was there, and then he wasn't. Like a chewed up piece of gum, he'd eventually been trampled on, across, above, and forgotten.

(Well, metaphorically speaking, anyway.)

* * *

But they love each other.

* * *

Ianto Jones has seen it all.

Start of the world, end of the world. There's so much to see, do, learn. Time is all he has left. It's all he has going for him. Him, and Jack.

He's little over a thousand, now.

But there's still so much to do.

He's been traveling with Jack plenty in the last few centuries, or something. The vastness of space is unlimited- beautiful, incredible. Blankets of stars far away from them- and just seeing other people, other planets, witnessing how they wake up and sleep and not just walk, not run, but soar. The universe is beautiful. Big.

It makes him feel small, though.

Like he's shrinking.

Like... he's leaving.

* * *

It starts about three hundred years later.

He walks in on Jack crying. Wordlessly, he sits down on the bed next to him, grabs onto him, lets him cry into his suit. For what feels longer than the years he's been alive for, they remain silent, save for Jack's shivering and sobbing and the drone of the power unit in the corner.

"I can't remember what Tosh looks like," he admits.

Ianto doesn't say anything. Jack asks him to describe her again.

Ianto does.

But he doesn't even remember who she was.

* * *

Even so, they love each other.

* * *

Jack's scared.

Ianto's changing. He can feel it, whenever he's in the same room as the Welshman- he's losing his accent, quirks, capabilities, knowledge. Like he's given up trying to keep up with all the new things they're seeing, all the planets and space and time. Lowered the bar. Like it's not worth trying anymore.

He tries to tell him. That it is, that it's worth it, if not for him then for Jack, at least, because it feels like he's losing Ianto when he's still the same man. But, even so. He misses all the things he used to love about him; the coffee, the suits, the smiles, the snark. It's all gone, lost somehow, maybe sucked into one of those inauspiciously swirling black holes they visited.

So he grins, shows him new worlds and planets, and grabs on and doesn't let him go.

Until then.

* * *

"What are you doing?"

"Nothing."

"You're packing."

"Am I?"

"It looks like it."

"...I should tell you."

* * *

Jack grabs Ianto by the shoulders, gives him a demanding look. "What the fuck was that about?"

Ianto raises his chin defiantly, stares back at Jack with no hesitation. "That wasn't about anything."

"You stole a fucking sunglider from the mayor's personal carpark."

Ianto raises an eyebrow. "Was there, wasn't I?"

"For fuck's sake, Ianto- this isn't you. This isn't something you would have done back when Torchwood was-"

"Well, Torchwood isn't around anymore, is it?" Ianto spits at Jack. "And that was a thousand- maybe more- years ago. If you can't deal with the fact that people change over time, get over yourself."

Jack shakes his head, scowls at Ianto. "You need to get in line, Ianto."

"Do I? Maybe it's you who needs to change, Jack, have you ever considered that?"

"Say you're right, say I do. But there's no point in jumping headfirst into danger to commit such a ridiculous crime!"

"Put it that way... maybe there's no point in traveling with you," Ianto snarls.

* * *

They do try to love each other.

* * *

"What are you doing?"

"Nothing."

"You're packing."

"Am I?"

"It looks like it."

"...I should tell you."

* * *

It's raining.

Jack Harkness is immortal.

The ground is wet.

Gravity secures you to the floor.

These are solid facts, possible facts, anything that rings true. It's raining, he's immortal, the ground is wet, and, yes, Jack is standing on the floor.

"I'm leaving," Ianto whispers.

"Yeah," Jack whispers back. "Sorry. I should've-"

"Look." Ianto glances down at the floor, squeezes his eyes shut. "There's nothing... there used to be something, but there... isn't. Not anymore."

"Yeah," Jack whispers. "But-"

"There's nothing to say, Jack. Took me a hundred- almost a thousand- years to realize it. There's nothing we can say, should say, will say. There's nothing left to say."

"Yeah." The wind's blowing right in his face, and it's cold, he's cold, everything's cold. He can feel the rivulets of the spray coursing across his skin, squeezes his eyes shut, curls his hand into a fist. "I know."

"I love you, Jack. I always will. But-"

"I know," Jack says. "So will I."

It's a lie. For both of them.

* * *

"What are you doing?"

"Nothing."

"You're packing."

"Am I?"

"It looks like it."

"...I should tell you."

"Tell me what?"

**"I'm leaving."**


End file.
